The Compleat, Ever-Changing Bowie Biography
David Bowie was born David Robert Pinkerton Michaels Alexander Halcroft Beemer-Jones in a little suburb of London on January 8, 1947. The doctor who delivered him forgot most of the names on the way to write it down, however, and David became David Robert Jones. His parents never noticed the difference. Little Davie hated music, but was pressured into learning accordion by his half-brother, Terry "The Terrible". Davie replied that he would only learn accordion on the condition that his long-time friend, George Underwear, also learn an instrument so that they could be in a band together. After much consideration, George decided that the only instrument he could play was the cymbals. Davie and George, therefore, toured the town as an accordion-and-cymbal duo. They often played Davie's first composition, "The 1812 Polka"; many pub-owners, librarians and sheep-shaggers paid them to go away.
Soon thereafter, Jones joined his first polka band, an ensemble called Davie Jones's First Band, which released a single, called Davie Jones's First Band's First Single. The group split because George Underwear wanted the band to be called George Underwear's First Band. The First Band and its two polka-oriented successors, My Second Band and The Lower Third each recorded some music that no one listened to. George Underwear suggested to Davie that he change his band's names, but Davie misheard George and decided to change his own name to David Cassidy, in order to avoid confusion with the lead singer of the Partridge Family. George informed Davie that this change would only escalate the confusion, and so Davie Jones became Mick Jagger. Under his new name, Davie "Mick Jagger" Jones released his first solo album: The World of David Cassidy (1967). After the release of this album, Davie nearly dropped out of the music scene entirely, as he dabbled in depedicationism, nihilism, agoraphobism, humanitarianism and antidisestablishmentarianism.
During his stint as a humanitarian, Davie "Mick Jagger" Jones met Angela Barmaid, a talentless waitress whom he later married in 1970. Angela was horrified when she discovered that she was not dating a Rolling Stone, and convinced Davie to change his name again. Davie decided to become "David Bowie", after his new bride rejected "David Cassidy", "Iggy Pop", "Pink Floyd", "Floyd Pink", "Soupy Sales", "Reeves Gabrels", "Mick Ronson", "The King of Stamford Hill", "Tinky Winky", and "Bernie Gripplestone", among many others. Thus, the pair became David and Angie Bowie. His next album, "Sheep Oddity" (1969), was an instant success in Eastern Indo-China, reaching the 492 slot at its peak. The followup album, "The Man who Shagged a Sheep" (1970), caused a big stir in the US, because of the cover, which featured the demure Bowie posing in a field with mismatched socks. Because of his socks, Americans shunned Bowie when he decided to go to America to promote his latest album. Unfortunately, Bowie's label had forgotten to ship copies of "The Man Who Shagged...", and nobody had any idea what he was talking about. Bowie therefore wandered aimlessly about the streets of America, and was occasionally shot at for wearing mismatched socks. Bowie commented, "I might change my socks before the next tour."
For his next album, Bowie not only changed his socks, but also his tune. And he used that tune on every song on "Drunk-and-Horny" (1971). The album featured songs dedicated to Eartha Kitt, Rembrandt, Iron Butterfly, and Bowie's newborn son, Glowie. Soon to follow "Drunk-and-Horny" was the album that made Bowie a star: "The Rise and Fall of Stardust McAfee and the Tracklayers from Peru" (1972). Bowie intended the album to be the ultimate "Concept Album", largely about one of Bowie's own ancestors, Stardust McAfee. McAfee, an entrepeneur during the late 1530's, was the first female tracklayer in the new world. Before the McAfee Train Company went bankrupt, Stardust and her team -- Bob "Mick" Ronson, Sally "Trevor" Bolder, Bainbridge "Bainbridge" Woodmansey and Mike "Katie" Garson -- laid an astounding 10 feet of track through the dense Peruvian jungle. Amazingly, this was all before the invention of the steam engine. Bowie had every right to be proud of his ancestor, and exploited her historical notoriety in a rush of publicity associated with the album. Angie Bowie commented, "I absolutely love this album. All the fans listening to this album get a history lesson whenever they turn on the record player! It's music! It's history! And I wrote every note of it!"
Bowie soon earned a following of History Professors and Sheep Shaggers, all of whom would call "Stardust McAfee" the greatest album of all time. And it's not hard to see why. With such songs as the ubiquitous "Five Sheep" ("Five Sheep! What a surprise! Five Sheep! We've shagged them a lot! Five Sheep! That's all we've got!") and the lunchtime classic "Suffragette City" ("Aw, don't eat with me, man, cause you can't afford the chicken, back in Suffragette City") -- which contained the controversial line "Wham, Bam, Chitlins Ma'am!" -- "Stardust McAfee" was destined to become the greatest album of all time. It supplied Bowie with his first American hit, reaching #193 on the Billboard Album Charts. The first single off the album was the inexplicable "It Ain't Sleazy", which the Sheep Shaggers bought in droves.
Following the relative success of "Stardust McAfee" was the equally successful "Aladdin Stuffing", another historical concept album, this time about Stardust's overweight sister. Bowie said about "Aladdin Stuffing", "I think of Aladdin as a kind of Stardust who's gone to America. There's a lot of the American countryside wrapped up in 'Aladdin'. There's also a lot of overeating and a lot of sheep shagging." Aladdin's penchant for sheep-shagging was immortalized in the album's first track, "Shag that Sheep". The sheep-shagging concept was expanded throughout 17 of the remaining 18 tracks on the album, the final track being reserved for a Rolling Stones cover to keep Bowie's wife happy. Shortly after the album was released, Angie said, "This album is absolutely fantastic! Especially the songs I wrote or deeply influenced, which was all of them. I even wrote the Rolling Stones song, but Mick Jagger doesn't want to admit it." The album was a huge success among sheep shaggers on both sides of the Atlantic. One sheep-shagging fan commented, "This album is really the top! This is the stuff that today's youth can really connect to. All except for that last track. What was it? Rolling-something-Stones? I dunno. Hey! Leave my sheep alone!"
Next on Bowie's wishlist was the album "Pimps" (1973), a compendium of songs Bowie heard during his early days in London. Among the more well-known tracks were Pink Floyd's "See Emily Play (with Herself)", the Yardbirds' "Shape of Your Thing", and the Who's "Anyhow, Anywhere, Any Position". Most Americans complained that it was too suggestive, and did not mention sheep enough. The Brits, however, decided that it mentioned sheep far too often, and should have had more innuendo. "Pimps" was therefore only a modest hit, and Bowie decided to move on.
Bowie Attempts "Musical Theatre"